


Good to be Home

by DetectiveRoboRyan



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Denerim, F/F, Family, Fluff, I was disappointed that your LI couldn't meet your family when u played as a city elf, Meeting the Family, cuteness, dialogue-heavy, snuggles, so i decided to remedy this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-10
Updated: 2016-07-10
Packaged: 2018-07-22 17:17:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7447471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DetectiveRoboRyan/pseuds/DetectiveRoboRyan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After 'Unrest in the Alienage,' Tabris decides it's about time her girlfriend met her family, so she takes Leliana down to the Alienage for dinner and conversation. Also cuddles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Good to be Home

**Author's Note:**

> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

The Denerim Alienage was a nasty place. Shanties built into the sides of already-existing buildings with rotting wood and crumbling stone, faded Elven banners hanging limply alongside clotheslines strung with linens, puddles of dirty, stagnant water or you'd-better-not-ask goo in sunken areas of the paths. The recent riots hadn't helped matters, and if anything, the tattered posters restricting elves from carrying weapons made it feel more like a fictional dystopia than a place to live— not to mention the rotting corpses and bloodstains everywhere one looked. To an ordinary passer-by, native Elves would hiss or glare, or, if they were brave (or foolish), demand to know what your business was in the Alienage and suggest you leave before something bad happened to you. Not out of concern for your wellbeing, of course, but for concern of someone else getting to your coin purse before they did. And then there were the mad and starving beggars and veterans, hawking for coin or going on about the dangers of boiled cabbage, compiled onto the risk you took just looking anyone in the eye.  
  
And yet, Flicker can only grin as she absorbs it all. It's good to be home.  
  
Getting rid of the Tevinter soldiers has improved the mood of the place, certainly, if only around Flicker. And with a bit of bullying and bribery and theft and calling in a few favors and a not-insubstantial amount of coin but _otherwise_ minimal effort, the supplies Flicker had gotten delivered to the Alienage seem to have helped greatly. It even feels downright cheerful— _pretty good,_ Flicker thinks, _for what was once a rotting sinkhole in the Denerim slums._  
  
So Flicker walks with her chin up as she takes Leliana down the street of the Alienage, their fingers laced together and their hands swaying like any couple out on a stroll— never mind that they're a Grey Warden and a former Orlesian bard, on a walk that very much has purpose, through one of Denerim's more dangerous areas. Never mind that. The Blight can damn well wait until they're done here.  
  
"I don't think I've seen you smile this much since you were telling me about that time you and your friends dropped a crate full of fish onto a group of ne'er-do-wells," Leliana comments, when Flicker pauses in front of the central tree. It's still big and healthy as ever, despite names and initials carved in its trunk and slashes from the rioting.  
  
Flicker breathes in the stench of rotten wood and the lingering smell of death and dog piss, mixed with cooking meat and baking bread. "It's good to be home," she says. "And I have a good feeling about today. My family will love you, trust me. It's high time you met them."  
  
 Leliana purses her lips. "Are you sure they'll be alright with… us? Me?"  
  
"They'll _love_ you," Flicker insists, turning and squishing Leliana's cheeks in her hands. "And if they don't, I'll love you enough that you won't have to worry about them."  
  
"I jusht don't want to imposhe," Leliana says, her cheeks squashed in Flicker's calloused hands. "How do I make a good impreshion?"  
  
"Just be your wonderful self, angel," Flicker promises, pecking a kiss to Leliana's nose. She gives Leliana's hands a squeeze, her eyes shining. "It'll all work out. I promise."  
  
Leliana chuckles. "Alright, love. I trust you."  
  
Flicker beams, and takes Leliana's hand again. "Shianni won't wait to break out the ale, just so you know," she explains as they walk. "Soris may seem kind of standoffish, but he's wary around humans, and he'll warm up eventually. Don't take my dad up on any bet he offers. And all of them will call me Kallian except Shianni, even though none of them approve of my joining the Nightstars."  
  
Leliana's head spins. "That's a lot of family to keep track of," she manages as Flicker pulls the key to Cyrion's house out of her pocket.  
  
Flicker shrugs. "You're kind of lucky my mother isn't around. She'd probably duel you for my honor, or something."  
  
 "Oh, my," Leliana mutters, feeling very intimidated. Flicker unlocks the door, then rams her shoulder into it to force the squeaky, rusted hinges into opening. She very nearly slams Shianni into the wall, and nearly ends up on the floor herself.  
  
"Flicker!" Shianni exclaims, throwing her arms around her taller cousin's neck. Flicker grins brighter than the sun itself and scoops her cousin into a hug with no effort. Shianni's feet dangle inches from the ground, until Flicker sets her down. She makes sure Shianni is standing firmly before letting go. Leliana knows body language well enough to know that hug was not merely a hug of family members separated.  
  
"About time you got here," Shianni says. "And you brought your girlfriend!"  
  
Flicker grins proudly, putting an arm around Leliana's shoulders and giving her a fond squeeze. "This is she," she says. "My better half and ninety percent of my impulse control. Otherwise known as Leliana."  
  
"Hello," Leliana ventures, offering a friendly smile and a little wave.  
  
Shianni sizes her up. Shianni is not a large woman, small in stature even for an elf, but wiry. Younger than Flicker by four years, young enough that Flicker didn't let her join a street gang when she did, and young enough that she listened. Leliana knew little about what had actually happened relating to Shianni the day Flicker was conscripted into the Grey Wardens, considering they'd spoken in some half-Elvish dialect completely indecipherable to Leliana back at the Temple of Sacred Ashes and Flicker was excellent at diverting questions when it came down to it. But she had since figured that Flicker would tell her when she was ready, and that was alright.   
  
"Leliana, huh?" Shianni finally says. "Good to finally meet you. I hope you're doing right by my cousin."  
  
"I try to," Leliana says.  
  
"Good on you," Shianni decides. "Drink?" She pulls a bottle of rotgut out of absolutely nowhere— her dress pocket? The inside of her undershirt?— and pours some into a tin mug, which she then offers to Leliana.  
  
She should say no. "Thank you," Leliana says, and takes it. Dammit.  
  
"Pour some out for me," Flicker says, setting her blades on the makeshift table by the door and making her way to the back of the tiny little house. "Dad!"  
  
An older man, his graying hair long and more cooperative than Flicker's ever is, lifts his head. "My dear Kallian," he says, lines forming around his eyes when he smiles. "It's so good to see you again. And this is a much happier occasion, is it not?"  
  
"Dear Maker, I hope so," Flicker admits. Then she pulls her father into a hug, careful not to crush the frail old man. She's taller than him, too. Her mother must have been a giantess, or something similar. Nevarran, perhaps. They're often tall.  
  
 Flicker has his smile. "Dad, this is Leliana," she says. Leliana has taken a tentative sip of whatever it was Shianni served her and done an admirable job of not recoiling from what seems to be liquid fire in her mug. "She came with me to stop the Tevinters, and she's been a great help since shortly after Ostagar."  
  
"I should thank you, too, then," Cyrion says, coming forward and shaking Leliana's hand firmly. "And for keeping my daughter in line."  
  
"It isn't easy, she's very spirited," Leliana remarks, giving Flicker a teasing glance. "Has she always been so adverse to brushing her hair?"  
  
"Oh, for the longest time," Cyrion recalls. "She used to come home with her hair full of twigs and pebbles, and then fuss when I brushed it. Thought herself a hero. Apparently heroes don't need to have neat hair!"  
  
Leliana grins at Flicker's embarrassed expression. "That's one of the cutest things I've ever heard," she says. "You used to play hero!"  
  
"I was eight!" Flicker protests. "Every child plays hero at some point in their lives!"  
  
"Unless their older cousin insisted they're the princess that needs saving," Shianni chimes in, cheeks flushed, throwing an arm around Flicker's shoulders.  
  
"It was either you or Soris, and Soris didn't like the princess dress," Flicker admits.  
  
"You and I both know pink isn't my color," Soris calls, from his position sitting on the futon in front of the fireplace. "Never has been. I liked being the dragon, though."  
  
"So I suppose you were the gallant knight, riding to the rescue," Leliana teases. "On a white charger— or perhaps a griffon? I think a griffon suits you better."  
  
Flicker blushes. "Does it matter? It was just a child's game, anyway." Leliana tries to picture Flicker as a child, a lanky little thing with unkempt hair and a broken front tooth, waving around a stick and pretending to be a brave hero. It was, indeed, one of the cutest things she's ever thought of.  
  
"And here she is, the brave hero," Shianni says, raising her mug of rotgut and swaying on her feet, clearly quite drunk. "The Grey Warden, come riding back home to save the place again! She never— _hic_ — never forgot the li'l people, that's a good hero."  
  
"Riding is one way to describe it," Soris says wryly. "I would've called it waltzing, like the cat that got the cream. But I suppose I'll drink to that."  
  
Shianni detaches herself from Flicker and leans on the back of the futon. "Soris joins, finally!" she cheers, pouring him a mug. "About time. Can you say 'wet blanket?'"  
  
"Hear hear," Flicker says, taking a deep swig from her own mug. "You've been so quiet all evening, Soris. Is that really what you want Leliana's first impression of you to be, a wet blanket?"  
  
Soris glances over at Leliana for the first time that evening, and looks her up and down. Then he shrugs, and takes a sip from his mug. "I can't say Kallian doesn't have good taste. Better than Nelaros."  
  
"I thought you said you'd trade for him," Flicker remarks.  
  
"He's handsome, sure," Soris admits. "But did you actually have a conversation with him? The man is as interesting as the color beige, and there is nothing worse than a good-looking man who's unbearably boring."  
  
"Good to know you'd rather have me over one as interesting as beige," Leliana teases.  
  
"Being the right gender was a good place to start," Flicker replies. "Plus, you introduced yourself by helping the rest of the team fight a herd of Loghain's men. That's a first impression I respect."  
  
"Tell me that story sometime, cousin," Shianni insists. "However you pick your women, it works."  
  
The conversation, from there, spirals into discussions on matchmaking, and how seldom it actually works. Cyrion protests that it does, sometimes, if one isn't looking to instantly fall in love with whomever they're matched with, and Shianni very passionately defends true love over advantageous marriage until the hearty Ferelden stew is bubbling on the stove. Leliana even shares a few of her bardly tales over dinner, and Shianni is intensely fascinated by the allure of the Orlesian court. Soris, meanwhile, mutters something indistinct about the absurdity of shemlen politics, which more than likely anyone with a brain in their head would agree to. It's great fun, and after everyone retires for the night, sated and sleepy from the food and drink and conversation, Flicker and Leliana lie together on the futon beneath a heavy quilt filled with patches, and listen to the dying embers in the fireplace.  
  
"They like you," Flicker says to Leliana, her lips gentle on the back of Leliana's neck. "I mean, I knew they would, but I was still preparing for what would happen if they didn't."  
  
"What would've happened?" Leliana can't help but ask.  
  
"I would've had to pick between you and my family," Flicker says, watching her cousins and her father talk with a soft, fond gaze. "But I don't think I could do that."  
  
"I could never ask you to," Leliana promises, setting a hand on Flicker's cheek. "You love deeply, Kallian Adaia Tabris. And it saddens you when those you love don't get along as well. I couldn't ask you to split your love for anything."  
  
Flicker smiles, and presses a kiss to Leliana's head. "The bard with the silver tongue strikes again," she murmurs. "You always know just what to say."  
  
"It helps that I know you," Leliana replies. Flicker chuckles, and shifts, staring at the low ceiling. It's patched in places with old boards and rusting nails, and no doubt leaks through from the roof when it rains. She can hear someone shifting and moving upstairs, possibly one of Flicker's cousins in their sleep.  
  
"Did you know," Flicker says. "That Andraste's Grace grows here?"  
  
Leliana's eyebrows shoot up. "It does?"  
  
"It does," Flicker nods. "I don't know how, but it does. It reminds me of you."  
  
"How so?" Leliana asks.  
  
"A light in the darkness," Flicker murmurs, kissing Leliana's ear. "A noise of courage amidst fear. A beautiful flower growing in a pile of dog shit. That sort of thing reminds me of you."  
  
"So I remind you of flowers growing in dog shit?" Leliana says in mock anger. "Wow, alright."  
  
Flicker laughs. "You know what I mean, though," she says. Then her tone softens. "When we first met and I asked you about that… dream you had, about the darkness and such, and when you woke up, there was a rose on that ugly dead rosebush in the Chantry yard garden? A light in the darkness? Like that. So now when I see something like that, I think of you."  
  
"Oh," Leliana says. "Oh!" And then she peppers kisses to Flicker's mouth and cheeks, and wraps her arms around her neck.  
  
They don't get much sleep that night. But oh, Maker, neither of them mind.


End file.
